topic Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth in Email

Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

timwj — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 11:39:02 GMT

Hi,

I have a good friend who was struggling with a slow 2Mbps ADSL, and has just moved to BT FTTP, he would have stayed with Plusnet but as PN do not do FTTP that was not possible.

He had been promised that he could keep is old F9.co.uk email addresses, and as he had been a customer for so long he would not be charged.

Now he has moved, incoming emails work, but outgoing do not. My guess is that Outlook needs to be setup to use SMTP weatherization, but I can't find any setting for F9 servers.

Can anyone help/ He has had a support ticket open for 2 weeks but is not getting anywhere.

Thanks

Tim

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

Champnet — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 15:10:46 GMT

Force 9 smtp server is relay.force9.net, he’ll probably need his username & password.

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

jab1 — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 15:28:03 GMT

@timwj As you do not specify which 'Outlook' version you are talking about (there are many flavours) the best thing to do is search for 'SMTP authentication Outlook <whichever version>'

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

timwj — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 14:43:15 GMT

Thanks for your help and replies.

We had a Teamviewer session last night and I setup up his emails with SMTP auth and everything is now working.

The odd thing is that this morning Plusnet support eventually got back to him via a phone call and said that it cannot be done!

We just hope his email accounts are not now deleted.

Tim

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

jab1 — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 14:46:11 GMT

Without being too cruel, some PN support people haven't been here that long - I bet some of them don't even know what 'F9' is.

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

MisterW — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 15:29:05 GMT

To be fair, the early (couple of years ago) 'free' mail accounts couldn't use authenticated smtp since they weren't 'real' accounts. The later ones are now 'generic services' accounts and have full access

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

jab1 — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 15:33:02 GMT

True, @MisterW , but if the OPs friend has 'only just' swapped, he should have a generic account?

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

MisterW — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 15:42:59 GMT

He will have.

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

Champnet — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 15:55:18 GMT

Which free email accounts were they ? Those of us that were moved from Force 9 to Plusnet did had proper email accounts, still in use today as no Plusnet alternatives were offered..

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

MisterW — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 16:21:05 GMT

Up until a couple of years ago, there was no formal method by which people could retain their email accounts when leaving PlusNet. There was a work-around which enabled mail to be retained but since this did not have a broadband account username/password it wasn't possible to authenticate to the smtp server. More recently a formal mechanism of the 'generic services' account has been introduced which enables authentication.

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

Champnet — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 16:22:18 GMT

I understand now, thanks....

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

Gandalf — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 20:13:20 GMT

Long ago there were different types of mail only accounts; free ‘Generic Services’ and chargeable ‘Plusnet Mail’ at £1.06 per month. The free ones didn’t have access to our outgoing mail server as it was deemed you’d have to pay for that through a ‘Plusnet Mail’ account.

I’m generalising when I say Plusnet Mail as there are also Force9 Mail and FreeOnline Mail accounts which behave in the same way at the same monthly cost.

In September 2018, we made our email and domain services free of charge which meant that we wouldn’t bill the £1.06 on the once chargeable mail accounts, but keeping our outgoing mail server still available.

Not long afterwards we made a change to the inherently free Generic Services accounts so that they’d now too have access to our outgoing mail server, levelling the playing field for everybody.

@timwj Could you drop me a PM with his username or ticket ID? I’m happy to take a closer look and make sure everything’s as it should be our side.

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

Petestrix — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 16:54:52 GMT

I’d love to know how this was resolved.
I’ve been reliant on my f9 email for 20 years, so would love to be able to retain it, if or when I move to an FTTP provider.
Any guidance, gratefully received.

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

jab1 — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 17:12:22 GMT

@Petestrix Easy - when/if you make the move, just contact PN by phone, advise them you are leaving, but wish to retain you email account. You may lose it for two or three days while the transfer goes through as it is a manual process, but that's all there is to it.

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

Petestrix — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 17:22:16 GMT

Thanks John.
I’ve been told that’s possible if it is a plusnet email account but not if it’s a force9 email account.
Pete

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

jab1 — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 17:41:40 GMT

@Petestrix Pete - unfortunately, some of the 1st-line support aren't clued up, and you were advised wrongly - note 'Gandalfs' comment in the accepted fix above.

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

Petestrix — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 18:05:40 GMT

I was hoping that would be the reason, but the 1st-line support 'elevated' the query, and I still received the same answer, hence I'm curious to hear, if @Gandalf is able to respond again on the thread at some point, who I need to speak to to achieve the same result.

Pete

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

jab1 — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 18:45:22 GMT

Pete, take my word for it - if @Gandalf says it can be done, it can, and I'm guessing the 'elevation' was to their line manager, who hasn't been here long enough, either.

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

Gandalf — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 20:01:10 GMT

Legacy Force9 Mail accounts behave in the same way as Plusnet Mail accounts, however the caveat is that it’s tricky to retain a Force9 email address that’s associated with a broadband account following the broadband being ceased/transferred to another provider.

@jab1 The issue discussed earlier up was a bit different in that the Force9 email address was already a Force9 Mail account from many moons ago (the broadband account was separate which meant that when it was closed, no changes were made to the Force9 email, so all they’d had to do was authenticate via the username and password to send mail as the authentication couldn’t happen over a closed Plusnet broadband account)

Pete’s account would have to be moved onto Plusnet Mail after cancellation and the Force9 email/login components manually rebuilt, because there’s no longer an option for us to create Force9 Mail accounts.

@Petestrix If you can drop me a PM when/if you move to your new/FTTP provider, I’ll be happy to see what we can do but I can’t make a promise or a 100% guarantee however I’ll make sure we try our best.

If we’re successful you’ll need to recreate any additional mailboxes you may have after we’ve reactivated your account, so I’d recommend heading onto manage my mail at plus.net/email as soon as you can to make a note of all your email addresses and email settings. This will make it easier to replicate and restore everything back to how things were before the cancellation.

Re: Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

Petestrix — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 20:13:05 GMT

@Gandalf Thank you for the really comprehensive reply. I really appreciate your time. I'll probably pause for a few weeks before deciding whether to change to a new provider (though the 900mb speeds are tempting), to consider how to manage longer term, as using the *****@xxxxx.f9.co.uk functionality has left me 100s of separate email addresses. Great for identifying security breaches and sources of spam, but the legacy this has left feels very unstable.

Thanks again, and to @jab1 too.....

Pete